Charlie is my Darling
by Amberdreams
Summary: Warnings: A few F bombs. Summary: For the prompt - Someone in the bunker unwittingly develops the ability to enter and control the dreams of others - but it takes a while for them to realise that this isn't just a really weird dream of their own. Ok, so technically Charlie isn't actually in the Bunker any more, but close enough, huh?


**Written for the Crowley's Christmas challenge in spn_bigpretzel**

**Recipient**: theymp

**Characters**: Sam, Dean, Castiel, Charlie, Dorothy

**Words**: ~2100

**Warnings**: A few F bombs

**Summary**: For the prompt - _Someone in the bunker unwittingly develops the ability to enter and control the dreams of others - but it takes a while for them to realise that this isn't just a really weird dream of their own._ Ok, so technically Charlie isn't actually in the Bunker any more, but close enough, huh?

* * *

><p>Dorothy decides enough is enough when Charlie wakes up screaming for the fourth night in a row. While she's soothing a nearly hysterical Charlie, talking her down bit by bit, Dorothy starts making plans.<p>

"It's all right, honey, I'm here," Dorothy says, holding Charlie tight and rubbing circles on her thin back. Charlie shudders a little and raises tearful eyes, and Dorothy wants to punch someone. Hard. Preferably a Winchester, if, as she suspects, this nightmare features one or the other of them. These bad dreams usually do.

She must have said something out loud, because Charlie replies, "It was Sam this time. Or rather, it wasn't. It's confusing. But anyway, Sam seemed to be an angel and his eyes were glowing blue."

Dorothy interrupts, both angry and perplexed. "But angels are the good guys, right? Or did I read my Bible wrong? I admit, it's been a long time, and back when I was a hunter, I'd never heard of angels being a thing…" She shuts up when Charlie shakes her head, making that mussed up red hair bounce in a rather adorable fashion. Dorothy womanfully ignores this distraction and concentrates on listening instead.

"Not so good in my experience. Most of them seem to be dicks," Charlie says. "But, the being-an-angel thing wasn't the worst part. No, the worse part was when Not!Sam lifted one hand and simply incinerated Kevin. It was awful. Kevin was screaming and his eyes were burning and … oh god, I think he's dead!"

Charlie's still shaking and that's when Dorothy realises, something has to be done.

"Get dressed, darling. We are going on a trip."

"But what about the Gozzle-Goblins?"

"They can wait. We need to get you sorted out, and there's only one person I can think of who might be able to help."

::::

The trip is uneventful, and the following day finds them sitting in what looks to Charlie like the interior of the tackiest circus fortune tellers' tent, opposite a woman of indeterminate age with short purple hair and lots of gold jewellery. Dorothy is ignoring Charlie's pointed looks, so she eventually stops searching for an explanation and sits down. The chair is too low in spite of being piled with too many elaborately embroidered cushions, and Charlie feels like a child waiting for her teacher to give her Mom feedback on her 9th grade year.

Zazarina is apparently part witch, part sea fairy. Charlie suppresses a desire to peer under the table to see if Zazarina has a tail.

"Tell me about these dreams you've been having, my child," Zazarina says, fixing Charlie with an uncomfortably piercing gaze.

"They started a few months after I arrived here," Charlie explained. "It was after we had to chase some flying monkeys through the Poppy Sea. It's not every night, but most nights, and they are always about either one or the other of my friends I left behind."

"These dreams, they are intense, no? But they are not like your normal dreams, are they." Zararina continues when Charlie nods. "These are different, I can tell. I have a theory, but I want to test something before I make any conclusions. I do not like to be hasty."

Zazarina stands, then disappears through a swathe of heavy velvet curtains. When she returns, she's walking slowly, carrying a large silver bowl in both hands. She places it carefully on the table between them and Charlie hesitates a moment before peering inside, half expecting it to be full of something noxious – like blood, or maybe that nasty pink pudding they used to force her to eat in kindergarten. It was just water. Or at least, a clear, colourless liquid that looked like water.

"That's right, Charlie, look into to the bowl and concentrate. Now, tell me what you see…"

::::

After Zararina's divinations, Dorothy is feeling more relaxed about the situation, but Charlie is bouncing around like a kid at Christmas.

"This is _awe_some, Dottie!" Anyone else calling Dorothy that would die a swift but painful death, Charlie just gets a grimace and a returned hug. "It's almost as good as playing Moondoor Elite on-line, definitely better than WarDogs. I can't wait for tonight…"

"You know I have no idea what you are talking about, don't you?"

Charlie just shrugs and carries on grinning wider than the Cheshire Cat, and that's an image Dorothy wants to scrub from her brain instantly. That bastard had been evil. Thank goodness Oz doesn't have anything as perverse as Wonderland. Dorothy is more than happy to leave that place to Alice.

The next morning when they wake up, Charlie's grin hasn't dimmed and Dorothy sighs, then tries to pretend she's not really dying of curiosity.

"So, no nightmares, then?" she says, feigning disinterest.

"The opposite, actually. It's weird what you find when you start delving into your friends' psyches from the inside."

Dorothy throws her hands up in defeat. "All right, all right, I cave. Spill, sister." Charlie claps her hands, delighted.

"I knew you couldn't resist! Okay, so Dean was in the middle of one of his horrible guilt-ridden demon dreams when I arrived. I did a bit of poking around and guess what? Apparently he has a bit of a thing about wearing ladies panties, so I just tweaked his thoughts a little and sent him into this long sexiliscious dream about taking up a new career pole-dancing in a transvestite club. It's a really complicated scenario. He's going to have to do a lot of training to get more flexible, of course; some of those moves are really bendy, you know? So I think that will keep him occupied for at least a week's worth of dreaming."

Charlie paused for a second, a far away look on her face Dorothy knew well. It usually meant trouble, so it was reassuring to know that this time trouble would land on someone else. Someone _deserving_, if half of what Charlie had told her about Dean was true. Dorothy is starting to wish she could share Charlie's game now.

"Okay, that's a great start, but what about Sam?"

"Yeah, Sam. After a lot of thought, I decided what those boys really need are some broments, you know, to repair that bond of theirs. So I let Sam into Dean's dream. Oh and added Castiel to the mix to make it more interesting…"

::::

Sam woke himself up laughing. He couldn't remember the last time that had happened. No, that wasn't right - he couldn't remember it _ever_ happening before. What a ridiculous dream that had been. What on earth had brought that on? He couldn't think of anything from the previous day, or even his whole life, that could have planted the seeds of an idea like _that_ into his head. It was bad enough that he'd been dreaming about Dean learning to pole dance at all, but that his brother had been writhing round the pole in nothing but the tightest hot-pink satin stripper-pants Sam had ever seen, while Castiel had been giving instructions – that meant it was time to get out the brain bleach.

After he'd stopped laughing, that is. Which might not be for a very long time.

Coffee. Sam needed coffee, badly.

"What's up with you, Dean?"

Sam stared as Dean moved around the Bunker kitchen slower than a geriatric sloth. Dean started guiltily and straightened his back. "Nutthin', I'm fine," he muttered, surreptitiously rubbing at his thigh.

"You look like you've done ten rounds with a wendigo. What have you been doing? Hitting the gym again? You know that didn't go so well last time."

"Shut up. And no, I haven't been working out."

Sam didn't stop staring. Not only was Dean lying about something, he was blushing. What the hell? A glimmer of suspicion was dawning, but Sam couldn't believe it. _Surely not… it was too far-fetched, even for us Winchesters. Time to test the waters_, he thought.

"So," he drawled, "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Yes. No. I mean, I guess so…"

Sam didn't think Dean could look any more flustered, but he was proved wrong when Castiel walked into the kitchen. Dean flushed an even deeper shade of red and started searching the cupboards for something in a manner so aimless Sam knew Dean was just trying to avoid meeting Castiel's gaze. Cas, who was staring at Dean as if he'd never seen him before.

"It is very strange," Cas said "but I think I had a human dream last night. Dean was performing some inexplicable manoeuvres around a pole and for some reason he was dressed in…"

Dean started so violently he sent a stack of plates crashing to the floor, and the next several minutes were spent with the three of them picking up the pieces while Dean swore loudly about the Men of Letters not having the sense to use tin plates that wouldn't shatter on impact.

"…so fucking impractical!"

Sam poured them each a mug of coffee, ignoring Dean's muttering and the way he was rumbling his discomfort louder than an angry elephant. An exceptionally red-faced elephant. Once they were all seated round the kitchen table, Sam broached the delicate subject.

"So, did we all have the same dream then?" He supressed a grin as Dean visibly flinched and half rose to his feet before subsiding with a disgruntled hrumph. If the surviving three occupants of the Bunker were sharing dreams, it had to be caused by something supernatural and therefore even Dean realised it needed to be discussed.

In his view, Sam did very well to get through a conversation that included Dean learning pole dancing without too much snickering. The eventual conclusion was that the dream might be freaking Dean out and confusing Cas, but that the only real danger posed by a continuation of any dreaming along these lines was that Dean might pull a muscle. Or several muscles if the moves he'd been trying last night were anything to go by.

"I'm not that old!" Dean protested, when Sam implied a general lack of fitness due to his advanced age was the real cause for worry. That led to Dean yanking down his sweat pants right there in the kitchen to demonstrate why he was moving around with all the grace of an arthritic seal on a beach.

"See? I'm not _stiff_, I'm injured! I'm fit as …as …"

"A thirty-six-year-old stripper?" Sam offered, helpfully, while secretly wincing in sympathy at Dean's rather impressive collection of bruises gained from his first night's dream-practice. Castiel just looked relieved Dean hadn't gone commando, then puzzled when Sam grabbed his hand to stop him experimentally poking at one particularly colourful contusion.

"Fuck you both, very much," was Dean's articulate and witty response as he pulled his pants back up.

::::

Three dreams and three mornings later, Dean was starting to loosen up and move a little easier. Sam had caught Dean on the laptop the evening before, studying the YouTube videos of world champion pole dancers that Sam had downloaded to research their techniques. So sue him, he wanted to make sure dream-Castiel knew what he was doing. Sam didn't want dream-Dean picking up any bad habits. Awake-Dean had enough of those already.

A week later Castiel caught them debating about where in the Bunker they should put the real live pole they'd ordered off _Backwards_ _ and had promptly thrown up his hands in a very un-angelic, dramatic fashion, tendering his resignation as Dean's pole dance coach, since Sam was clearly keen to talk over that position. Both Winchesters had looked a little abashed but hadn't argued with his decision.

"You're improving," Sam observed, waving a piece of toast vaguely in Dean's direction as he watched Dean stack his plate with pancakes. Sam wondered whether Dean would notice if he sprinkled some fresh strawberries on there while Dean's back was turned. Fibre and vitamin C… "I never thought you'd get past the basic invert, but you got close to that half chopper, no problem."

Dean visibly perked up at that. Maybe even preened a little bit and added an additional squirt of maple syrup. Sam winced slightly at the extra calories. He was going to have to push Dean extra hard tonight to work those off.

"Hey, what do you mean got close, I totally nailed that chopper. And I pulled off that other upside down twisty thing last night. That shit is hard, but I'm fucking awesome, dude."

"What I fail to understand is why you insisted I should be the one giving Dean instructions on how to execute that particular pole dancing move. I told you I'd retired, and Sam knows more about this art than I do, yet you still dragged me back into your dream." Cas said, frowning into his coffee.

"Dude, isn't it obvious?" Sam tried and failed to contain his laughter. "That 'upside down twisty' move you were training Dean to perform last night is called the Descending Angel!"

Even Castiel had to smile at that one.

::::


End file.
